A Senate panel has approved a bill expanding a law that allows the state to withhold money from government entities that don’t do as legislators please after its sponsor promised to scale back the scope of its application.

Burton Kruglick, a three-term chairman of the Arizona Republican Party who is credited with modernizing the party and helping to shepherd the state from Democratic to Republican control, died on Feb. 12 at the age of 91.

Lawyers for death-row inmates say recent changes to Arizona's procedures for carrying out the death penalty didn't do enough to confront abuses in the state's power to decide the methods and amounts of drugs used in executions.